Indigenous Leaders & Activists
Photo: Tlingit Chief Charles Jones Shakes at home in Wrangell, Alaska, with possessions, ca. 1907 (courtesy UW Libraries, Special Collections)
Use this to mark our author bio posts.
I am an undergraduate student at the University of Washington studying in the School of Aquatics and Fishery Science combined with a Quantitative Science minor. I was born in Seattle, Washington and have lived in a three mile radius my whole life. I enjoy fly fishing in my off time. Taking the Indigenous Activists and Leaders class with Josh Reid I have become interested in the marine resource rights in the Pacific Northwest.
My name is Ara and I am a senior here at UW majoring in Political Science. I am an enrolled member of the Quinault Nation. I am interested in how topics like politics intersect with Native issues. I am passionate about current Native issues and decolonizing our education system as well as our minds. I also work at a restaurant in Queen Anne as a waitress and have a great dane named Da Vinci. I love spending time outdoors, going hiking and climbing mountains.
Hiking in Montana at Two Medicine lake with my Dad.
A member of the Snohomish Indian Nation, I am an associate professor of History and American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. My research agenda largely focuses on Indigenous marine space, although I am interested in a wide range of intersecting research fields, including Indigenous peoples, the North American West, Pacific worlds, US history, and environmental history. Yale University Press recently published my first book, The Sea Is My Country: The Maritime World of the Makahs, in the Henry Roe Cloud Series for American Indians and Modernity.
This examines the Makah Nation’s historical relationship with the ocean. I am currently researching a project about indigenous explorers in the Pacific Ocean, specifically focusing on those individuals who voluntarily traveled throughout the Pacific from the late eighteenth through late nineteenth centuries. At the UW, I teach courses in American Indian history, history of the North American West, and environmental history.
This digital history project is a capstone assignment for a course I regularly teach. Titled “Indigenous Leaders & Activists,” the course explores Indigenous leaders and activists across the world and throughout time. By reading about these leaders, students will examine issues of power, sovereignty, identity, and the role of the individual in influencing the course of history.